Heuristic cultural question

[muckefuck]

I'm not sure quite what I'm asking, so please bear with me. The recently flurry of entries about regional stereotypes (Digression: Now that's my kind of meme! Not the same dull list of questions propagating from blog to blog but a discussion that causes each person to ponder the same issues but post about different aspects of them) got me thinking about local culture and sparked the question:

Who do you think of as your culture-bearers?

Of course, this already begs many more questions, most significantly what constitutes "culture". The arts, particularly performance, come immediately to mind, but foodways or even modes of thought certainly qualify as well. Even a person who simply embodies a particular mindset that seems locally prevelant might fit the bill.

I admit, when it comes to my own background, I'm kind of stumped. Mark Twain was born only a few miles away from where I once lived, but I don't read his works to learn about my culture as much as to get a taste for one that preceded it. None of the modern writers I've read has given me the experience of thinking, "This is it; these are the people I belong to (or came from)"; the closest I've come is the petit-bourgeois northern German family described in Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks.

But I feel I've already said to much to prejudice the question. Don't rely on my interpretation; take it however you will.

Comments

[felipemcguire.livejournal.com]

Robert A. Heinlein.

Not perfect...but as close as I've come among real people...

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

speaking purely about MY local culture -

Carole Pope, the two fat ladies, Andrea Dworkin, Mary Daly, Judy Chicago, AA Bronson, Evergon, my grandmother, Balla Demeter, Endre Kertész, Mapplethorpe, Margaret Atwood, Gordon Lightfoot, Rick Bébout, Jane Rule ...

but is that what you're after?

[febrile.livejournal.com]

I know for a fact that I'm flattering myself terribly, but...

...I'd say a strange cross between Oscar Wilde and Woody Guthrie.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

My culture? The Pixies and REM and Tom Robbins and Douglas Adams and Annie Liebovitz. Not that they're my favorite anythings, in particular, but they seem like cultural touchstones to me.

[humpingbears.livejournal.com]

Wow, excellent question...

I'm making this more about the culture of my family, the culture in which I was raised, and the culture I feel I live in now.

Ummmmmm, stir together Charles Wesley, Bob Dylan, Katherine Graham, Earl Scruggs, Robert E. Lee, Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Blount, Jr., Jimmy Carter, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Anne Richards. Add a dash of Andy Warhol, and a hair of Ad Rheinhardt.

I, too, have just flattered myself to no end.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Ingri D'Aulaire, my piano teacher Joel Dobkin, CS Lewis, my great-grandmother, my paternal grandparents and maternal grandmother, George Lucas.

I HATE to give Lucas credit for anything, no matter how much Star Wars informed my mindset as a child. And so much of much culture came from oral histories, especially of my father's family.

(NB to humpingbears: I'm very proud to say that I am Robert E. Lee's 3-greats niece.)

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Vanna White. Cult of mindless youth, beauty and easy riches.

[princeofcairo.livejournal.com]

Actual culture: Doug Liman, Douglas Coupland, Kevin Smith
Aspirational culture: Dean Martin, Robert Benchley, Robin D. Laws